


This Town's Big Enough For the Both of Us

by hopeless_eccentric



Series: Junoverse Cowboy AU [6]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Bandit Buddy Aurinko, Bandit Vespa Ilkay, Bank Robbery, Cowboy AU, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Horse Chases, Junoverse | Juno Steel Universe, Marriage, Stand Alone, be gay do crime, buddy aurinko kiss me on the lips challenge, canon typical lack of homophobia, the inherent romance of being old west bandits together, they're cowboys but they're also IN LOVE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28163202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: Buddy Aurinko was the kind of woman who never ceased to amaze Vespa, be it with her wit or strategy or sheer force of resolve. She was the kind of woman who could stare down the barrel of death and spit in its face. She wore a ruby red grin the way a snake wore a rattle and the prettiest pair of pistols Vespa had ever seen, each inlaid with gold and enamel and half as lovely as the woman who bore one on each hip.Buddy was the kind of outlaw sheriffs dreaded and troubadours exalted. Carriages slowed down at the sight of her, knowing well they could only outrun her for so long. If lawmen didn’t see the barrel of her gun, they saw her as the reason they turned in their badges. Some even said the reasons trains rattled on the rails was because they were chattering their teeth in fear of the woman they knew was bound to rob them at some point or another.Trade with lesbian4lochness!!
Relationships: Buddy Aurinko/Vespa Ilkay
Series: Junoverse Cowboy AU [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1823821
Comments: 7
Kudos: 17





	This Town's Big Enough For the Both of Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kopescetic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kopescetic/gifts).



> Hey all!! just in case you thought i would ever stop with the cowboy aus. well.
> 
> Content warnings for armed robbery, gun violence (no injuries, minor threatening), snake mention

Buddy Aurinko was the kind of woman who never ceased to amaze Vespa, be it with her wit or strategy or sheer force of resolve. She was the kind of woman who could stare down the barrel of death and spit in its face. She wore a ruby red grin the way a snake wore a rattle and the prettiest pair of pistols Vespa had ever seen, each inlaid with gold and enamel and half as lovely as the woman who bore one on each hip.

Buddy was the kind of outlaw sheriffs dreaded and troubadours exalted. Carriages slowed down at the sight of her, knowing well they could only outrun her for so long. If lawmen didn’t see the barrel of her gun, they saw her as the reason they turned in their badges. Some even said the reasons trains rattled on the rails was because they were chattering their teeth in fear of the woman they knew was bound to rob them at some point or another.

Vespa had no idea how she managed to be lucky enough to end up as the other half to this streak of high-noon sunlight personified. However, even on those days where her insecurities murmured in the few inches between them, one poem, prayer, and promise always rang true: Buddy and Vespa, Vespa and Buddy. They were the kind of names written in the stars to go hand in hand.

Even haunting the corner of the bank under half a mile of mourning robes, Vespa was astonished their disguises had yet to be found out. The veil of dark lace was to Buddy Aurinko what leaves were to sunlight. They could only compliment what could not be restrained, and beneath the taut posture and folded hands of a feigned widow, Buddy’s smirk blazed no less bright.

“Are you ready, darling?” She mused, a laugh peeking over her voice the way the first death-red sliver of sunrise sears over the rusted rock horizon. 

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Vespa whispered. “Are you fainting or me?”

“Why, a lady such as yourself?” Buddy chuckled. “I couldn’t see it in a thousand years.”

“Anybody can faint, Bud—” Vespa began to protest as the pair of them took a step forward in line. 

“Do take a compliment, Vespa. As often as I attempt to shower you in such matters of speech, I’m rather afraid you could use far more,” Buddy smiled, the look glowing out from underneath her mourner’s veil. “I’m just saying the lady in the kind of gown befitting, say, a bandit, would be a little less likely to lose consciousness. Now, I am by no means faint of heart, but if my, let’s say, incredibly wealthy husband, forty years my senior has just passed, what could that possibly do to my constitution, dear?”

“You need to stop making me laugh during heists,” Vespa snorted. “You nearly busted me on that train because you kept flirting with me the whole goddamned time.”

“Well, darling, would you rather I stole the wedding ring I bought for you?” Buddy huffed. “I held up three separate train cars on my own time just to sneak that under your nose, you know. I would rather it not get mixed about.”

“Mhm.”

Buddy stopped in her tracks. If Vespa had not been paying such close attention to the face beneath the mourner’s veil, she would have missed her faux-miffed glare altogether.

“I don’t take kindly to ladies laughing at me,” she pretended to huff.

“Well, maybe I wouldn’t be if you weren’t making it so goddamn difficult,” Vespa returned, though she couldn’t help a warm and soft and domestic smile sidling across her face.

“I take pride in that, darling.”

“That’s why I love you so much,” Vespa chuckled, feeling her heart skip a beat or two too many for her liking when Buddy’s smile shone back from beneath her veil.

Under any other circumstances, she would have loathed such a feeling making an appearance during a heist. However, something about Buddy Aurinko made something in her chest twinge and something in her gaze go soft. Vespa couldn’t find it within her to dislike that, so rather, she took Buddy by the hand somewhere behind their skirts and squeezed it out of the view of the other patrons at the bank.

They were an odd couple, the gruff, weather hardened lady who looked like a bank robbery waiting to happen and the widow poised to be a distraction at a moment’s notice. However, Vespa knew better than to have the pair of them marching into the bank undisguised. As much as their faces would be well-recognized side by side, Buddy stood out too much on her own. 

Every click of Buddy’s shoe against the wooden floor underfoot rang out with the crack of the broken hearts of those whose hands she had kissed but once or smiled at for a moment too long. Vespa had expected to be one of them, but the goddess in form of a woman who now squeezed her hand through black lace gloves saw fit to bless her with her company every day, and thanks to the wedding ring Buddy refused to take off, even during heists, that promise would remain for the rest of their lives.

As much as Vespa would have liked to ruminate on that, the bank’s line grew short, so she paused and bowed her head, gesturing for Buddy to step ahead.

“You go ahead, ma’am,” she insisted, just a little too loud.

“Why, thank you,” Buddy replied in a near-mockery of gentility.

Vespa held back for a moment while Buddy made all the subtle preparations, requesting further help and service and an incredibly hefty withdrawal from the bank account of a geezer of a railway tycoon with a penchant for underpaying and overkilling his workers. If memory served, he also had a nasty habit of staying alive.

However, between Buddy’s feigned sobs, paired with her hands clutching those of the teller like a lifeline and the anguish she sewed so artfully within her voice, the workers and line alike seemed convinced. If not for the fact that a matching wedding ring sat below Vespa’s glove, she would have almost believed the entirely fabricated story. 

Vespa was quickly forced to confront her own biases when a stone-cold voice rang out from the back of the line.

“Mister Parnassus ain’t dead, ma’am.”

The sheriff’s voice slithered its way up the floor, making Vespa’s blood freeze and her hand go tight over her pistol.

“Why don’t you leave the lady alone, sheriff?” She replied coolly as she turned, one leadened gaze meeting another as his eyes, as frigid as gunmetal, flickered from her holster to her curled lip and back.

“Pardon me, ma’am, but I do believe she’s telling a lie.”

“I think I’d like to see something other than an accusation to back you up,” Vespa growled.

“You see this badge?”

“I’m not blind.”

“It means all the evidence you need is what I say, unless you wanna—”

Buddy, true to her word, gasped and hit the floor. Vespa would have been worried if the money hadn’t also disappeared somewhere into the depths of her skirt.

“Outta my way!” She cried. “I’m a doctor. Ma’am—ma’am, can you hear me?”

“Sheriff—” Buddy pretended to croak from the floor as Vespa all but slid to her aid. Vespa made a point of ignoring the fact that the location of her fall had put the pair of them between the sheriff and the door. “I need the sheriff.”

“Hey, someone get the asshole in a hat!” Vespa yelled over her shoulder. Several people in hats exchanged looks, but with gritted teeth and a fire like the end of a cigar burning in each eye, the sheriff marched over.

Each fall of his boots upon the creaking, groaning floor rang out like a coyote’s call on a cold and windy desert night. Vespa knew better than to be scared, though an angry bile rose in her throat when he grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her to the side. For the sake of the heist, Vespa prepared herself to grin and bear it until she and Buddy could escape. However, it seemed she was not alone in her ire.

In a single motion, Buddy cast the veil aside and pressed the end of the pistol to the sheriff’s forehead. 

If joy shone from Buddy’s face like the sun, rage upon her visage was like staring down the barrel of a wildfire. She needed only hold out a hand for Vespa to help her to her feet, for she did not tear her gaze from the wide-eyed shock of the sheriff. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t seem to find anything to say, merely putting his hands up for fear of her gunshot breaking the dead silence of the room.

“Sheriff,” Buddy began lightly, although tight-jawed fury wrought her voice with all the strength of her white-knuckled hand upon her pistol. “I see you’ve made the mistake of manhandling my wife.”

“Buddy and Vespa,” the sheriff returned. “I should’ve known it.”

“Hindsight does always seem to be clearest, yes,” Buddy mused. “Now, to all of those who unwittingly walked in on a heist, I suppose you would rather have your sheriff alive, regardless of his quality. In regards to that matter, I intend to keep him that way. If you ever do arrest the pair of us, I promise it will not be for something so messy as murder. For the time being, do I have the word of those gathered here that, should I not shoot this young man, we will be able to walk free?”

“Bud, he’s gonna get the deputies the second we leave,” Vespa hissed.

“Well then, I suppose a chase is rather good for the constitution,” Buddy returned in a tone she usually would have beamed through, though her eyes roared with the raging hiss of the kind of river that carved canyons. 

Whether or not the sheriff knew it, his brief infringement upon Vespa’s honor—a subject she found nearly laughable to think about—had put his life in far more danger than attempting to stop their heist.

However, with the majority of the room nodding and the sheriff trying to blubber out an affirmative response, Buddy lowered the gun and offered her arm to Vespa. She wasn’t too proud not to cast a gaze over her shoulder as they left, one hand tight on her pistol and the other tight on Vespa’s hand.

“Told you he was gonna get the deputies!” Vespa cried halfway onto her horse at the sound of running steps from the bank.

“All the better for a chase, darling!” Buddy called back, punctuating her victorious shout with the snapping of her reins.

Between the flying of her gown and veil about her face and the speeding of her horse, Buddy looked like a patch of darkness burned into the day. She was a sunspot, blocking out the pious light of the straight and narrow for the sake of searing her own brand of good into the territory’s history. 

If Vespa didn’t have her own escape to worry about, she could have spent the rest of her life watching as Buddy tore through the desert like a bolt of lightning tearing through the seldom stormy sky.

“Your three o’clock!” Vespa found herself yelling over the whirring of the world flying by. 

Buddy turned around and shot, close enough to spook the deputies’ horses, but far enough to miss. When she turned back to Vespa, it was with a mile-wide grin on her face and a crowing laugh blooming past her lips.

“Do you think that’s enough to lose them, darling?”

“By the time they get their shit together, we’ll have a decent enough lead,” Vespa returned, voice falling just a little lower as Buddy closed the gap between their steeds by a few more feet.

“They weren’t going to catch us in the first place, you know,” Buddy chuckled.

“Can’t be too careful.”

Buddy merely laughed, the sound bursting from her with all the light and life and confidence that had long since been embroidered into her. Even if she was a little older and a little wiser and a little more careful than she had once been, the woman who burned with such ferocity that the desert had gone dry had never truly withered away.

Perhaps she had started a saloon and gotten married, but that certainly didn’t mean Buddy Aurinko had settled down. The Earth itself would tremble as long as Buddy and Vespa walked it. With the ground shaking beneath the hooves of their horses, it almost seemed to do so then.

With Buddy Aurinko—her wife—blazing with that victorious grin, Vespa felt that hand in hand, the two of them could put a bullet between the eyes of God.

**Author's Note:**

> YEEHAW!!!! WE'RE BACK ON OUR BULLSHIT LADS!!!!
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or you'll have to meet me at high noon
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


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